Always the Strong One
by kage yamino
Summary: “This time is different,” she says with an odd smile. “This time.. is the last time. Nothing can be promised for the last time.” HP Universe, original characters. Oneshot.


AN: An old one-shot from a Harry Potter project I tried that pretty much fell through. I still like this though so I figured I'd post it. The character is Medea O'Conner, the younger sister of a Muggleborn witch. Not sure of the exact timeline, but this takes place before Harry survives the killing curse obviously. Anyway, enjoy.

Always the Strong One

She's going back soon.

She didn't say specifically, but I can tell. It's in the way that she speaks, a gentle tone that is supposed to comfort, to reassure, to calm. Her eyes also betray her, but then, they always did. They glitter brightly with happiness at every little thing the children do or say, and, when she thinks I can't see it, they brim with tears. They absorb everything with a hungry thirst that delights the children, but I...

I hate it, because I know what it means. I _know _what that faraway look in her eyes as she returns from reading the children their bedtime story is from.

She's going back soon.

She meets my eyes with a weary bravery that makes me wince but makes my heart swell with pride as she refuses to deny the accusing truths in my eyes. She is a fighter and lover, and neither will let her stay. I know that. I admire her for that. I also hate her for it.

I'm crying now, and it's not because I know that she might not return. It's because I'm so selfish that I just want her to stay. If I could, I would make her. If it would sway her decision, I would drop to my knees where I stand, bawling to the heavens like a great child, clutching her newly-donned battle-robes for dear life, if only to keep her from leaving.

It wouldn't sway her though, because while she loves us, this world, this life, she loves _them _all the more, because they _are _her life. I would merely be Stunned and would be left in the cold silence of the night with my unconscious thoughts as she, once again, left to fight.

Last time, she returned, as she did the time before that, and the time before that. I want to make her promise that she'll return this time as well. She did it the other times; she can do it again tonight.

But she won't promise me. "This time is different," she says with an odd smile. "This time.. is the last time. Nothing can be promised for the last time."

A ghost of a kiss to my forehead, a tight embrace, and a whispered farewell.

She's gone...

And the night will never end. My worry keeps me here, in this sterile kitchen that now strikes me as cold and unfeeling. My worry keeps me there, long after the lack of sleep's hysteria creeps into me.

"She will be fine," I tell myself, careful to keep my voice low. No need to wake the children. "She is a witch. She can do magic. She'll be fine."

Magic. That is what brought us to this. She loved it. She studied it for so long, determined to learn all she could. At first, it was mere curiosity, and there was always a scholar's gleam in her eyes. Then, though, after a few years, the gleam dimmed and was replaced with grim determination, followed by a haunted look that scared us all.

"There's just a little war going on," she'd said dismissively. "Nothing you need worry about, being Muggles and all. Don't worry about it."

She was unconcerned and only that saved her from being pulled from the Wizarding world. But I.. I was thunderstruck. The magical paradise I had imagined from her stories was gone, replaced by a merely more advanced version of our own world. I didn't like it. I wanted her back.

She would have none of it though. She couldn't leave. She had to learn how to fight, she'd said, so she could help her friends, and she did. Through her marriage, disownment, pregnancies, and the murder of her husband, she learned, and she fought. She didn't care much for our world anymore, and more and more it became I who was the mother of her children. More and more it became I who was the elder one. I, the caring one. I, the loving one. I, the loyal one. I, the dependable one.

I, the _Muggle _one.

I just wanted to be young for once, to party, to get drunk, to think of nothing but clothes, sex, and boys. I didn't want to be _this_, living off _her _money, raising _her _kids, giving up everything - my life, my friends, my family- for _her_.

I didn't have to. I muttered, and I griped, and I complained, but time and time again, when she offered to let me go to college or something, to find someone else to take care of her kids, I turned her down. I stayed. Why? Because I love this life. I love the children, the bill-less life, and I love _her _and all of her witchy-ness. I'm just bitter. Not at her, but at the world that took her from me in so many ways. The world that, although she denies it, she loves more than us.

"The world for which," I slur as I sleepily watch an owl approaching hours and hours after she left, "she would die."

I don't open the letter after I take it from the owl; I don't even offer the messenger any food or drink, as _she _once told me I should. It's griping, but I'm too exhausted to put up with any of that, and a badly aimed cinnamon bun to the side of the head- I was aiming for it's bottom- shuts it up. It doesn't stay much longer after that, which was a good thing; I was positive it was going to bite my hand. Now that it's gone though, I open the letter and I can't help the bitter laugh that comes out as I drop the parchment on the kitchen table and lean against the counter with my face buried in my hands.

"I hate them.. All of them. Do you hear me, Vicky?" I laugh weakly into my palms, hysteria rising. "I hate them _all_. I never cared much about that war of yours; just that you'd live to see the next day, but now.. Now, I think I'll care. I'll care so much that I'll hate every last one of 'em.. Those dirty bastards you were always cursing, and those bloody innocent wizards you kept fighting for!"

I twist violently and grab a vase you gave me once, and I throw it, as hard as I can, at the standard letter of regret from your Minister. It shatters loudly, and I slide to the ground, hugging my knees tightly as I sob.

When the children, _your _children, come running in to check on me, worried about the crash, I simply cling to them and cry all the harder. Your son, Tobias, is as smart as you were when you were six. He knows what my crying means. But Margaret, little three-year old Maggie, won't know and understand until later that you are never coming back..

Gods, Vicky, how could you do this? This was the _last time_, you'd said. Why couldn't you have just held on? When we were young, you'd told me once about this unsurvivable killing curse, but you _promised _me that I didn't have to worry. "I'll be the first to survive it," you'd said, grinning so earnestly that I believed you. But you didn't. You _didn't_ survive it, and now I'm here alone, with your two children to raise, and _now what am I supposed to believe_?

The open window lets in a chilling breeze, and the second parchment falls to the ground where I can't avoid looking at it.

_I, Victoria Catherine O'Conner, of sound mind and body, do hereby leave all of my possessions, land, and the care of my two children, Tobias Ryan O'Conner, age six, and Margaret Louise O'Conner, age three, to my youngest sister, Medea Lynn O'Conner upon the moment of my passing..._

Gods... I just wanted to finally be the little sister...


End file.
